A federal appeals court has partially revived a class-action lawsuit challenging how immigration judges handle bond hearings in Upstate New York, ruling that federal law does not stop lower courts from declaring government detention procedures unconstitutional on a class-wide basis.
In an opinion issued Wednesday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit threw out a lower court’s decision to dismantle the suit completely. The appellate panel agreed that trial courts can no longer issue broad injunctions against immigration enforcement—a restriction set by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022—but ruled that the ban does not extend to declaratory judgments.
The legal fight started in March 2020 with Junior Onosamba-Ohindo, a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After entering the U.S. without inspection, he was held at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia. An immigration judge set his bond at $8,000, an amount Onosamba-Ohindo could not afford. Though a community bail fund eventually posted the money to free him, he launched a class action arguing that the government’s bond system violated the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
Under standard immigration court procedures, noncitizens held in discretionary detention carry the burden of proving they are neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk. Onosamba-Ohindo argued that due process requires the government to bear that burden instead, using clear and convincing evidence. He also contended that immigration judges should be required to consider an individual’s ability to pay and look into non-monetary release options before setting high cash bonds.
Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford initially agreed in 2020, certifying a class of pre-hearing detainees and ordering regional immigration courts to shift the burden of proof to the government. Those temporary procedures stayed in place for nearly two years. However, after the Supreme Court ruled in Garland v. Aleman Gonzalez that lower courts lack jurisdiction under federal law to issue class-wide injunctions blocking immigration enforcement, Judge Wolford decertified the class entirely and dismissed the lawsuit.
The Second Circuit concluded that the district court went too far by dropping the request for a declaratory judgment along with the injunction.
“While the district court did not err in decertifying the class for injunctive relief, we conclude that its decision to decertify the class for declaratory relief was based on factors that are not relevant to the class-certification analysis,” the per curiam opinion stated. “That was an abuse of discretion.”
The panel explained that while an injunction directly orders officials to act, a declaratory judgment simply establishes the legal rights of the parties. Because the law limiting class-wide injunctions specifies limits on injunctive relief, the court reasoned that lower judges still hold the authority to declare whether a policy is unlawful.
The three-judge panel split on certain details of the ruling. Circuit Judge Alison J. Nathan wrote a separate opinion agreeing with the outcome, but argued the court should have protected the injunction claim as well, noting that the Supreme Court still holds authority to issue class-wide injunctions based on lower court records. Circuit Judge Richard J. Sullivan dissented in part, arguing the district judge acted within her discretion because a simple declaration would not give detainees immediate relief without separate, individual habeas corpus filings.
The ruling sends the case back to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York to evaluate class certification for declaratory relief.
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